There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

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blaurebell
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby blaurebell » Wed Jul 05, 2017 9:19 pm

I'm at 49 books right now, but probably half of those were comics :)
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neofight78
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby neofight78 » Wed Jul 05, 2017 10:58 pm

I'm at 3 books :? (although they were in Russian)
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Sat Jul 08, 2017 6:48 pm

neofight78 wrote:I'm at 3 books :? (although they were in Russian)


Ahh, well that definitely counts as double, if not triple! :D

jeff_lindqvist wrote:There are 72 books on my list so far - but a little more than ten are children's books which you can skim in a few minutes. That's still more than 50, though.


I know I'm a humanities student, but even I can manage that sort of maths! :lol: Congrats.

blaurebell wrote: And usually within 10 years those ideas will become popular in the rest of the world too - Germany first usually, then the English speaking countries. So, if you want to be ahead of your peers in the humanities, read French stuff!


Definitely. When I am looking at the early silent film, a lot of the scholarship was French. And equally, I am working up to reading several of Igor Kon's books in Russian, because I suspect they will be very useful for my studies in the future. However, I find that often gender studies (which is the vast majority of what I am interested in) isn't popular in other languages - it is biggest in Anglophone countries. When I was speaking to academics in Russia, while there are people working on it, they always commented on how it remains in many ways taboo in Russia, and they often rely on anglicisms of words like "gender". So, while there is a lot of academic stuff I plan to read in other languages, I can't see that I'll be able to put aside English (and I wouldn't want to - there's lots I want to read!).
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:02 pm

This week was pretty pathetic language wise as it ended up being oddly busy. I was working at a summer school thing and my mother is going away soon, so there's a lot to sort at home. We also went to see a ton of theatre - I ended up at 6 things in under 10 days. So that was excellent, but meant that all my evenings were packed. Plus, my usual exercise routine and meeting with friends. :shock: I suspect this will be the case for the next fortnight, so my expectations are low.

I've also decided to try and cycle more - I learnt as a kid but I've never been comfortable with it. So I've been cycling most days. This is great - I live reasonably far out, so it will make my commute much easier. But I do most of my reading on the bus, so all of that time has vanished.

Russian
- 5 hours
- Read: 33 pages of the first Harry Potter novel.
- Watched: 1 episode of Once Upon a Time and 3 of Ugly Betty.
- Wrote: 272 words
- Grammar: A few chapters of the Penguin Russian course - hopefully I'll be able to finish this in the next fortnight.

French
- 6 hours of French
- Read: 30 pages of Les Mis. I also started Les gens heureux lisent et boivent du cafe.
- Watched: A couple of episodes of Jane the Virgin, and one of Brooklyn 99 with my parents.

I had been planning to watch the BBC Musketeers with my dad in French. We both wanted something fairly lighthearted and low quality, and I had seen the French dub on Netflix in Russia. However, now that I am back in the UK, the series is only available in English (as are several of the BBC shows). I get that there are regional differences, but how come the show is available but the dub isn't!? We will probably go with Brooklyn 99 for now, then maybe move onto films (depending on time) and other shows. If anyone has any suggestions of lighthearted shows available in French on UK netflix...?

Spanish
3 episodes of Daredevil! Finally some Spanish again.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Cavesa » Sat Jul 08, 2017 9:28 pm

MamaPata wrote:This week was pretty pathetic language wise
...
Russian
- 5 hours
- Read: 33 pages of the first Harry Potter novel.
- Watched: 1 episode of Once Upon a Time and 3 of Ugly Betty.
- Wrote: 272 words
- Grammar: A few chapters of the Penguin Russian course - hopefully I'll be able to finish this in the next fortnight.

French
- 6 hours of French
- Read: 30 pages of Les Mis. I also started Les gens heureux lisent et boivent du cafe.
- Watched: A couple of episodes of Jane the Virgin, and one of Brooklyn 99 with my parents.

Spanish
3 episodes of Daredevil! Finally some Spanish again.


Not that I wanted to to correct a native speaker, but I am not sure you're using the word "pathetic" correctly in this context. I'd say "pretty good". :-)

Now the important question: What is Once Upon a Time like in Russian?

And what a coincidence, I watched Daredevil in Italian. It is quite a learner friendly series. Do you watch only dubbings for now or original Spanish stuff too?
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby zenmonkey » Sat Jul 08, 2017 9:32 pm

Cavesa wrote:
MamaPata wrote:This week was pretty pathetic language wise
...
Russian
- 5 hours
- Read: 33 pages of the first Harry Potter novel.
- Watched: 1 episode of Once Upon a Time and 3 of Ugly Betty.
- Wrote: 272 words
- Grammar: A few chapters of the Penguin Russian course - hopefully I'll be able to finish this in the next fortnight.

French
- 6 hours of French
- Read: 30 pages of Les Mis. I also started Les gens heureux lisent et boivent du cafe.
- Watched: A couple of episodes of Jane the Virgin, and one of Brooklyn 99 with my parents.

Spanish
3 episodes of Daredevil! Finally some Spanish again.


Not that I wanted to to correct a native speaker, but I am not sure you're using the word "pathetic" correctly in this context. I'd say "pretty good". :-)

Now the important question: What is Once Upon a Time like in Russian?

And what a coincidence, I watched Daredevil in Italian. It is quite a learner friendly series. Do you watch only dubbings for now or original Spanish stuff too?


Yes, all those hours does not seem pathetic - and I'm another that watcher DD as a learning source - except for me I just finished the two seasons in Portuguese. Good luck!
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Sun Jul 09, 2017 10:42 am

Cavesa wrote:
Not that I wanted to to correct a native speaker, but I am not sure you're using the word "pathetic" correctly in this context. I'd say "pretty good". :-)

Now the important question: What is Once Upon a Time like in Russian?

And what a coincidence, I watched Daredevil in Italian. It is quite a learner friendly series. Do you watch only dubbings for now or original Spanish stuff too?


:) Thank you! It's a lot better than where I was not that long ago, I guess I should hold onto that!

Once Upon a Time: I have only watched the first episode, but it seemed like a decent dub to me. The Russian didn't feel weird at all, and unlike most Russian dubs, they've actually gotten rid of the English. Mostly I watch things and I can hear the English underneath, so it overpowers the Russian. And there are multiple voices! So I'm happy with it.

I have quite a few original things lined up, but currently I'm just working through Daredevil. A lot of the original stuff is more serious, so I'm sticking with Daredevil. :lol: But the aim is to move onto the other stuff as well. I don't have Spanish subtitles for Daredevil so I'm not entirely sure how much I understand, and how much I'm matching. I'm definitely not ready to watch it without any subtitles though. So we'll see how it goes.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jul 09, 2017 11:22 am

MamaPata wrote:Once Upon a Time: I have only watched the first episode, but it seemed like a decent dub to me. The Russian didn't feel weird at all, and unlike most Russian dubs, they've actually gotten rid of the English. Mostly I watch things and I can hear the English underneath, so it overpowers the Russian. And there are multiple voices! So I'm happy with it.

I have quite a few original things lined up, but currently I'm just working through Daredevil. A lot of the original stuff is more serious, so I'm sticking with Daredevil. :lol: But the aim is to move onto the other stuff as well. I don't have Spanish subtitles for Daredevil so I'm not entirely sure how much I understand, and how much I'm matching. I'm definitely not ready to watch it without any subtitles though. So we'll see how it goes.


Thanks for a great tip! It might be my first series in Russian, if I get my hands on it. I have already seen it (lost interest in one of the later series though, as it was too much), but I really liked it. Wait a minute! It was my first series in Spanish! At least the first season, I din't want to wait for the others. :-D

It's ok to not understand everything at first. If the Spanish versions are like the Italian ones, the level across the Marvel series should be pretty constant. That is useful, as the individual series are rather short (usually 1 or 2 seasons with just 13 episodes).
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Sun Jul 16, 2017 8:48 am

Well, as predicted, this week wasn't really very strong language wise. I wasn't feeling amazing, which combined with everything I mentioned last week, meant that languages dropped down my priority list. I also started an internship, which should be good, but meant this week was a bit more chaotic. I am starting to turn the page though and I am hopeful that next week will be better. On the plus side though, because I wasn't feeling great, I basically just curled up and watched an entire series of Once Upon a Time in Russian so that shoved my numbers right up.

Russian

- 20 hours. I don't think I have ever managed this much Russian. :shock:
- Read: A few pages but nothing that has added up.
- Watched: 13 hours of Once Upon a Time. It's pretty terrible but you get sucked in. Also, I have a deep and profound love for Robert Carlyle.
- Wrote: 290 words.
- Grammar: Zilch.

French
- 6.5 hours of French
- Read: I finished "Les gens heureux lisent et boivent du cafe". I came across this recommended on a BookTuber someone on this site had talked about. She was incredibly positive about it and it was cheap, so I downloaded it. Having read it, I can safely confirm that I have no idea what she liked about it and I may have to rewatch her review video to see what I missed! If you might read it, just skip the rest of this paragraph.
It's a romance novel, which starts with a woman grieving. She decides to move to Ireland, where she immediately falls into a hate-hate relationship with her young attractive neighbour. Then suddenly they are head over heels for each other. Look, I love a terrible romance novel, but this was too far even for me. There was no build up, the characters weren't at all likeable (except perhaps the stereotypical "gay best friend"). I would like to read more romance novels in French, because it would increase the amount I read, but I do also need a bit more of an idea of where to start. I read a lot of Nora Roberts in English, because (while still romance novels), they're vaguely more feminist - there's always a focus on the women's careers and their friendships. This had none of that. So if anyone knows of any more bearable French options, let me know! Bonus points if I can afford them!
- Watched: A couple of episodes of Jane the Virgin with my parents.

Spanish

A little clozemaster.
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Mon Jul 24, 2017 1:16 pm

Eh, same old really. My grandma came down to stay with us this week, so I was obviously spending time with her rather than doing language work, so that cut into everything. It really meant that I couldn't watch or read much, but had to make the most of odd moments here and there. Also, someone recommended Kwiziq on this site, and this week gone they gave me unlimited quizzes, so I was making the most of that. So I actually did quite a lot of small bits of French on that) (and Russian memrise daily) rather than anything proper.

That said, the Kwiziq stuff has been really useful for me. My French grammar is pretty bad, but it's been drilled in over 6 years of school so it does come back pretty fast - but mostly tenses. So I make a lot of stupid errors - I'm particularly bad for aller +en/a/..., so kwiziq is quite useful for making me drill that.

Russian
- 2 hours. :oops:
- Read: Nothing.
- Watched: 2 episodes of OUAT.
- Wrote: Zip.
- Grammar: Zilch.

French
- 10 hours of French
- Read: I started "Femmes de Dictateur"
- Watched: Nothing

I actually went to two French classes this week on French films from 2017, which was really good fun. I am running late, but I will comment more about that another time.

Spanish
I feel like you can guess...
A little clozemaster.
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